EADS Union Urges Caution on Job Losses, Plans Day of Action

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- European Aeronautic, Defence & Space
Co.’s works council urged a collaborative approach on what may
be thousands of job losses as it integrates defense and space
units, with one of its biggest unions calling a day of protests.

The number of posts to be eliminated has not been settled,
Toulouse, France-based EADS said in an e-mail after German news
agency DPA reported 8,000 will go, adding that employee groups
will be briefed on plans before numbers are made public.

“We demand clear communications, not stalemate, co-determination, not confrontation, and long-term thinking not
short-term profit fixation,” Ruediger Luetjen, who heads the
company’s European works council, said in a statement. “It’s up
to management if they want to tackle the upcoming revamp in a
constructive or confrontational manner.”

EADS will merge defense and space operations next year
after struggling to build up the military business as European
governments pare spending. The plan, which will mostly affect
employees in Germany and France, is part of a revamp that will
see the business take the name of jetliner unit Airbus.

The IG Metall union will hold press briefings tomorrow in
Hamburg and Bremen -- two of EADS’s biggest German sites -- in
conjunction with the works council and representatives of staff
at the space and defense businesses.

‘Deep Cuts’

The day of action, planned for Nov. 28, will take place
across Germany to highlight the threat of “deep cuts,” the
union said in a statement.

EADS management will brief worker representatives on the
plans on Dec. 9, two days ahead of a wider presentation it has
scheduled for investors on its corporate plans.

Celine Fornaro, a London-based analyst at Bank of America
Merrill Lynch, said in a note that the number of job cuts
reported by DPA, which cited people with knowledge of EADS’s
intentions, “is way more than anyone had anticipated,”
representing 17 percent of the affected workforce. Fornaro had
previously forecast that 2,250 positions might be scrapped.

EADS Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said Nov. 14
that work on plans to combine the operations were “progressing
well,” describing the reorganization as a “critical step” in
a push to improve profitability and competitiveness.

Shares of EADS traded 1.1 percent lower at 51.61 euros as
of 2:11 p.m. in Paris.